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For all married Catholics and single Catholics considering marriage
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EasterJoy
Guest
Those who do not like to hear fellow Catholics defending their non-Catholic spouses would do better if they didn’t make blanket statements about how impossible it is for a Catholic married to a non-Catholic to have solid Catholic families or that they all have “serious problems with their relationships”. It’s wrong, and so of course those of us who know better are going to say so. There is more subtlety to the question than “just don’t do it”. We know that, the Church knows that, and it gets old to hear people working from* pure conjecture* say otherwise.
You won’t hear us tell other Catholics to go out looking for a non-Catholic to marry. You won’t hear us saying it never causes any more problems than are to be expected from a marriage of two Catholics. We are only correcting the insinuation that a marriage to a non-Catholic is always “less than” a marriage to a Catholic, to the point that it is better to just not marry at all than to marry a non-Catholic. Honestly, I can’t think of a single one of the Catholics I dated that I’d trade for the non-Catholic I got. I went for a man who would be fully in support of my practice of the faith. It is a sad statement, I suppose, but the winner by far was not one of the Catholic men I knew, because I couldn’t exactly go for one of the seminarians!
My husband’s cousin (he and the cousin are both non-Catholic), also married a Catholic. He blended into their parish so well that he was asked if he would be willing to serve on the parish counsel!! That is how faithful he was about seeing that his children were raised Catholic and how supportive he was about his family’s commitment to be active in their parish!! My husband, likewise, has never said a single word against our children fully learning and living out our faith. He does not teach the faith as “this is what the Church teaches” but as “this is what is true”. Nevertheless, he still has doubts and thinks it would be disingenuous put himself forward to be received into the Church.
What Catholic does not need, however, is a spouse who will entice them to water down their faith. My husband believes that the more spiritual I am, the easier I am to be around. He also feels he was slighted by his parents by not being raised in a particular church. He was a baptized non-Catholic who nevertheless did not have an anti-Catholic theological agenda. Quite the opposite–he wanted more for his children than he got. He likes praying, he likes going to Mass, he likes that I am Catholic, and although he has not come to change himself, he does not want to change me or our children. He *wants *us to be Catholic, and more than nominally Catholic, and he always has.
Whether your spouse is Catholic or not, that desire to give the children a thoroughly Catholic religious upbringing is what predicts whether your children are raised to be nominally Catholic or something more substantial. You have to really talk about the practical consequences of the Catholic family you envision, because you can’t even presume that the valedictorian of a Catholic high school with a priest for an uncle and a nun for an aunt is going to go for that. I would say, however, that if the person you marry not only has no objections to raising your children Catholic, but positively wants the children to be fully integrated into your faith, that will cause the fewest problems. If your faith is important to you and your spouse–Catholic or not!–has the attitude that “religion is all well and good, up to a point” or “the Catholic Church is great, as long as it is not overdone” be very leery about that. That is a crack in the foundation. It won’t doom the building, but neither is it safe to ignore it. That is a serious issue.
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
TLDR.
Just read the booklet, please.
Just read the booklet, please.
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EasterJoy
Guest
For practical reasons, the “perhaps” you used was an important qualification to have made! We know what would happen in a pluralistic society if mixed marriages were forbidden without the non-Catholic party giving any grounds for the denial, don’t we? I would not be so quick to conclude that there are more mixed marriages allowed “than they should be.” We have enough Catholics excusing themselves from canon law as it is, even when the marriages are between two baptized Catholics.
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EasterJoy
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I’d point out that the case of Freddie and Celia could have been a conversation between two Catholics, because the catechesis in our lifetime has not been what it was when that was written. The Church has many like Celia in her ranks, Catholics who think they get to choose what is true and what they can ignore if they like. They also think it “only fair” that their spouse who wants to follow Church teaching gives in some of the time. It is a very good idea to warn people to have detailed talks about what kind of religious family life they are going to have, because de facto “mixed marriages” between baptized Catholics are not as rare as they ought to be. Don’t assume you know, just because your spouse-to-be has devout parents, either. Ask, and don’t just take everything you hear at face value. Do the work to discern whether you two will make good parents together for your Catholic children.
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BettyBoop416
Guest
While I don’t consider myself to be an EasterJoy fan, I have to admit, she hit the ball out of the park this time.
Agreed, it is an issue. How serious it is I’m not sure.
My non-Catholic (non-believer, actually) husband had no problem with me raising the kids Catholic. He attends Mass with the family whenever possible, the kids all went to Catholic schools, and from day one he has supported me in my efforts to raise Catholic children. If some situation arises where he cannot, in good conscious, lend his support, he gets out of the way. This was our agreement from the beginning. But he was also very upfront about the fact that he would take no active role in their Catholic upbringing - which I guess is understandable since he doesn’t believe a word of it. As it turns out, things have gone well. But if something had happened to me when the kids were young, and I wasn’t around to support them in their faith formation, I doubt very seriously that they’d be Catholic today.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile!
(As much as I post, it is a wonder if I have any “fans” at all!!
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hurting
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As to my other question, here is the best study I could find on the incidence of divorce among Catholics, but I could not, based on a very cursory read, find anything that spoke directly to the divorce rate differential in mixed marriages vs. Catholic-Catholic marriages.I don’t doubt - I believe that it would be very rare to be counseled on the dangers of a mixed marriage.
cara.georgetown.edu/MarriageReport.pdf
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hurting
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EasterJoy
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You do have to marry someone whose integrity you trust completely. The vows of matrimony are nothing without that.
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TheRealJuliane
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It’s impossible to enforce them. If the non-Catholic spouse changes his/her mind, there is little that can be done, and then the internal strife between spouses becomes intense. It is more the norm than the exception, that when children come along, these issues come to the surface, even if everything has been wonderful to that point.
Again, I want to point out that the forum members whose spouses have not interfered in any way, nor raised any objection to the children being raised 100% Catholic are the exception to the rule, and they still haven’t helped the Catholic to raise the children as Catholics. They haven’t obstructed, and may have even cooperated to the extent that they can, but they HAVE NOT contributed to the Catholic upbringing of the children. How could they, not being Catholic?
I believe that when my parents married, it was required for the non-Catholic to convert, in order to get married in the Church. That was in 1952 or 1953. But I know in any case, my father did convert. Maybe my mom insisted. I wish he had really given it his all, but when my mother died, he fell away. He ended up being re-baptized as a Baptist.
Thank God my mother was a very devout convert herself, or who knows where I’d be now…
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EasterJoy
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Well of course they can contribute! It is not as if they are not baptized. Even if they are not baptized, of course it is possible to contribute to someone else becoming something that you are not. What is required, however, is to truly value what your spouse is and therefore what your child is becoming. That, I think, is vital, you are right. It is not by any means to be taken for granted. It is a very special gift, one that the “Celias” of this world couldn’t imagine.
They can be the one who says, “Have we said grace yet?”…and mean by that the Catholic prayer. Not only can they go to Mass as faithfully as the Catholics, they can be the ones who make sure the children are taken to Mass when the Catholic parent is not home. They can teach the facts of the faith not as “this is what the Church teaches” but as “this is what is true.” They can genuflect, they can be reverent in church, they can encourage the rest of the family to avail themselves of the sacraments. They can say, as it turns out, “You are lucky to be getting a religious upbringing. I didn’t get that, and I don’t have what you’re getting.” They can let the children know that faith is a gift.
My husband does not know how to play baseball himself, either, but he has done everything he can to make sure our kids get good instruction and he shows delight that they are advancing as players. His sacrifice on behalf of their advancement in something he does not have himself shows that he values both them and what they are becoming.
If you marry someone who even at the beginning is merely tolerating your faith, that is a very tough road. Everyone considering it ought to know that, and it ought not be sugar-coated for either the Catholic or the non-Catholic. I know a woman who married in that case, anyway, because she was no longer married (I don’t know if she was widowed or if her husband divorced her), her children needed a father and the prospect of trying to keep up as a single mother boded even worse for them than a good home with a non-Catholic spouse. These are not always simple decisions.
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HopeEternal
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I am really surprised this thread is still going. I just felt I needed to clarify a few things. First of all, the reason I wanted this thread deleted and excused myself from the forums is because I am afraid that my original post offended some of the posters here. That was never my intention, and I am truly sorry if I wrote anything that came across as offensive. I think the problem with the original post is it may not have been very clear.
I didn’t really want people to post “horror stories”. I merely wanted people to share some of the challenges, big and small, that have come up within their marriages. Often times on these forums I will see a single Catholic post something about how their boyfriend or girlfriend hates the Catholic church, or they refuse to raise any future children in the Church. They want to save the relationship because they are in love, yet there is a huge obstacle present. I wanted these single Catholics to see that if they are having major problems with religious differences in the dating phase, it will only get worse upon marriage. I was hoping that by sharing my story, and others, that it would give them something to think about and consider carefully before they go ahead with marriage. I still don’t know if I’m wording this quite right.
I am not against mixed marriages. My parents had a mixed marriage for many years before my dad converted. There were no issues whatsoever. My mom raised us within the Church and my dad backed her up 100%. My ex-husband gave me the impression that our marriage would be similar.
I guess my problems with my ex-husband are more about the fact that he lied about his character than having different religious backgrounds. He told me he was Christian beforehand, yet he did not attend chuch. His family belonged to a certain denomination and attended weekly. His parents really made a big deal about how Christian they were. They talked about it quite a bit. When we were dating, his parents told me what a wonderful person he was, what great values he had, and how he had been raised in a Christian household. They assured me that his ethics and morals were good, despite the fact that he never went to church. They also told me that they had the same beliefs about marriage as Catholics. Basically, I think they were trying to promote themselves. In fact, at our wedding, my inlaws made it a point to tell some of the guests what great Christians they were. My ex-husband and his family seemed to have good values so I really had no reason to doubt anything.
After we were married, my ex-husband’s true character came to surface. I also found out that despite being Christians, my inlaws had very different ideas about a lot of things. Not to mention a few skeletons in the closet that were not revealed until after the marriage.
Once again, I am truly sorry if I offended anyone. Please accept my apologies.
I didn’t really want people to post “horror stories”. I merely wanted people to share some of the challenges, big and small, that have come up within their marriages. Often times on these forums I will see a single Catholic post something about how their boyfriend or girlfriend hates the Catholic church, or they refuse to raise any future children in the Church. They want to save the relationship because they are in love, yet there is a huge obstacle present. I wanted these single Catholics to see that if they are having major problems with religious differences in the dating phase, it will only get worse upon marriage. I was hoping that by sharing my story, and others, that it would give them something to think about and consider carefully before they go ahead with marriage. I still don’t know if I’m wording this quite right.
I am not against mixed marriages. My parents had a mixed marriage for many years before my dad converted. There were no issues whatsoever. My mom raised us within the Church and my dad backed her up 100%. My ex-husband gave me the impression that our marriage would be similar.
I guess my problems with my ex-husband are more about the fact that he lied about his character than having different religious backgrounds. He told me he was Christian beforehand, yet he did not attend chuch. His family belonged to a certain denomination and attended weekly. His parents really made a big deal about how Christian they were. They talked about it quite a bit. When we were dating, his parents told me what a wonderful person he was, what great values he had, and how he had been raised in a Christian household. They assured me that his ethics and morals were good, despite the fact that he never went to church. They also told me that they had the same beliefs about marriage as Catholics. Basically, I think they were trying to promote themselves. In fact, at our wedding, my inlaws made it a point to tell some of the guests what great Christians they were. My ex-husband and his family seemed to have good values so I really had no reason to doubt anything.
After we were married, my ex-husband’s true character came to surface. I also found out that despite being Christians, my inlaws had very different ideas about a lot of things. Not to mention a few skeletons in the closet that were not revealed until after the marriage.
Once again, I am truly sorry if I offended anyone. Please accept my apologies.
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EasterJoy
Guest
I was not offended by your original post, and did not take it as a condemnation of mixed marriages. I took it as an invitation to post comments on the topic. It is not a simple one, not at all. If it is made it into a “never do it” or “have no fear” debate, I think that does those facing the issue a real disservice.
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Brandall
Guest
If you look at HopeEternal’s profile, you can see her divorce was just finalized last month and it isn’t something she wanted. It’s going to take some time for her to come to terms with everything that has happened in her life. It’s probably best to assume that this difficult transition has left her in a very tender state.
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TheWarriorMonk
Guest
One of the things I’ve discovered (and creeps into many of my posts) is that the vows between Catholics and Protestants are simply not the same vows. Catholics are brought up one way; Protestants are brought up another. They may say the same words at the wedding, but they mean different things to each party. The blatantly obvious one deals with divorce. As I found out, the vows to my ex meant “til death do us part, or until I decide to get a divorce.”
Can these marriages work? Of course, but people tend to get along better when they agree on fundamental issues, such as religion.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Here is the thing. Catholics, for whatever reason, are a religious group for whom interfaith marriage is not likely to increase their chances of divorce. That does not mean that Catholics who stay in their interfaith marriages are happier.
This article was written by a Jew married to a former Jehovah’s Witness, raising their children Jewish. She is not against interfaith marriages, but she was forced to conclude by her polling that “… interfaith marriages often come with a heavy price. They are more likely than same-faith unions to be unhappy and, in some circumstances, to end in divorce. They also tend to diminish the strength of religious communities, as the devout are pulled away from bonds of tradition and orthodoxy by their nonmember spouses.”
The poll also found this, however: "Certain faith pairings seem more likely to result in divorce. While roughly a third of all evangelicals’ marriages end in divorce, that figure climbs to nearly half for marriages between evangelicals and non-evangelicals. It is especially high (61 percent) for evangelicals married to someone with no religion. (My definition of interfaith marriage did not include couples from different evangelical, or different mainline, denominations.)
Evangelicals and black Protestants in interfaith marriages reported the least satisfaction. Mormons, remarkably, reported high levels of satisfaction — in interviews, some expressed confidence that their spouses would eventually convert. Catholics in interfaith marriages were no more likely to divorce than those married to other Catholics."
Read the article for yourself, but what I took away from it is that an interfaith marriage is not more likely to lead a Catholic to divorce, but it is likely to cause unhappiness and make the practice of the faith more difficult, including the responsibility to raise the children Catholic. This is in keeping with my experience of the marriages I have known among friends and relatives over my lifetime:
nytimes.com/2013/04/06/opinion/interfaith-marriages-a-mixed-blessing.html?_r=0
The author of the article concludes: “So while I recognize that the diminishment of religious institutions and a rise in marital instability could be among the long-term effects of interfaith marriages, I cannot wish for the tide to ebb. Nor do I think it will.”
I would not conclude that way. I would conclude that pastors ought to warn the faithful in their care that marriage to someone outside the Church, in Paul’s time as in our own, is a difficult road. One really needs to be realistic to “counting the cost.” I would say that the Church’s old standard that the non-Catholic spouse be fully willing that the household be a Catholic household is necessary. Even then, it is not easy. For a spouse of very high merit and particularly for a spouse more likely to support the practice of the faith even more strongly than the actual Catholics one knows, it is worth it, I am not saying it ought to be forbidden, but it will not be easy for either of you. You are asking them to move to a foreign country and, to some extent, to live there as a foreigner. Don’t forget that.
For those who have done it, I would suggest St. Nonna of Nazianzus as a patron. Her husband was a member of the Hypsistarians, a Jewish-pagan sect worshiping Hypsistos, the “Most High” God. He eventually became St. Gregory the Elder of Nazianzus, and their three children were all declared saints, including St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Doctor of the Church.
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tapiocapudding
Guest
I am in a mixed marriage (to an agnostic) and it is NOT easy. My husband is fine with me baptising our children, saying prayers with them (and he will encourage them to pray before meals if they forget), sending them to Catholic school, etc. So at least I don’t have that worry. But he certainly does not attend Mass with us, or pray with me and it is LONELY. On Christmas Eve when everyone is at church and all you see is happily families all around you it just breaks your heart to be there in the pew alone with your children. It does make prayer and marriage in general more difficult too. My non catholic spouse is happy married to me but he doesn’t even believe the same things about marriage (how it is holy and binds us as one flesh) that I do. Furthermore, as he was never baptised our marriage is not even a sacrament and I can’t tell you how hard it is to do without that grace. It is lonely to say the rosary alone, to not be able to discuss God and the most important aspects of my life with him as he just doesn’t understand.
All that said I firmly believe my husband is loved by God. Our marriage has had struggles but I believe God loves our marriage anyhow and he gives us the grace to maintain it despite our differences. I believe God has a plan for my husband and I will never cease praying for him and loving him. I want my husband to feel the love of God through me, and I tell him the source of this love I give him is from God. I hope through my example he will change his life. Without me he would probably be further from God than he is now. I pray often to Saint Monica and I can tell she understands what I’m going through. I do not believe it was a mistake to marry my husband.
All that said I firmly believe my husband is loved by God. Our marriage has had struggles but I believe God loves our marriage anyhow and he gives us the grace to maintain it despite our differences. I believe God has a plan for my husband and I will never cease praying for him and loving him. I want my husband to feel the love of God through me, and I tell him the source of this love I give him is from God. I hope through my example he will change his life. Without me he would probably be further from God than he is now. I pray often to Saint Monica and I can tell she understands what I’m going through. I do not believe it was a mistake to marry my husband.
I too am the product of a mixed marriage, and it also worked. Mom raised me Catholic, and Dad had no problem with that. Dad had no formal church affiliation of his own and was just glad that I was getting “some” religious training.
That’s why I can’t say that such marriages are always good or always bad. It really depends on the individuals involved, and, as a Catholic, the other spouse being okay with the Catholic being Catholic and raising children as such.
On to this:
Yeah; Mom and Dad had a better marriage than some of my cousins who married Catholics and had major marital problems.
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Chiltepin
Guest
I was in a “mixed” marriage, but my husband was baptized and joined the church this Easter!
He said he was an atheist when we met, after clarifying some terms I convinced him he was really more of an agnostic, or even more just really apathetic about something that does not deserve our apathy. I outlined why we probably weren’t a good match, that I date to discern for marriage, and what I would ultimately need from my spouse. Over the course of our dating he came to Mass with me every Sunday and came to believe in Christ.
I honestly felt that I was called to marry this man who God had placed in my life (as my next door neighbor.) There are many who would say don’t hold your breath, you can’t know they will convert, but I couldn’t see how it would not be God’s will that he join the church eventually. It took my Grandaddy 50 years of marriage. I knew I might have to be patient. It took a few months of marriage for him to decide to join the RCIA.
I did have some sadness that my marriage was valid but not sacramental and that my wedding was not a Mass, but we’re plenty sacramental now.
All that being said, marriage is not an evangelization tool. Many of us will be part of bringing our spouse into the church, but that doesn’t mean everyone should go find a non-Catholic. It really helped that my husband had not been raised in another faith or I might have met a lot more resistance, or even had fights about it. Catholic, or non-Catholic, the question really is, are you called by God to marry this person.
He said he was an atheist when we met, after clarifying some terms I convinced him he was really more of an agnostic, or even more just really apathetic about something that does not deserve our apathy. I outlined why we probably weren’t a good match, that I date to discern for marriage, and what I would ultimately need from my spouse. Over the course of our dating he came to Mass with me every Sunday and came to believe in Christ.
I honestly felt that I was called to marry this man who God had placed in my life (as my next door neighbor.) There are many who would say don’t hold your breath, you can’t know they will convert, but I couldn’t see how it would not be God’s will that he join the church eventually. It took my Grandaddy 50 years of marriage. I knew I might have to be patient. It took a few months of marriage for him to decide to join the RCIA.
I did have some sadness that my marriage was valid but not sacramental and that my wedding was not a Mass, but we’re plenty sacramental now.
All that being said, marriage is not an evangelization tool. Many of us will be part of bringing our spouse into the church, but that doesn’t mean everyone should go find a non-Catholic. It really helped that my husband had not been raised in another faith or I might have met a lot more resistance, or even had fights about it. Catholic, or non-Catholic, the question really is, are you called by God to marry this person.
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